When every girl in County Durham wanted to be crowned Miss Crimdon

A seven-minute home movie showing the triumph of Miss Wheatley Hill Sally Fleetham at the annual east Durham beauty pageant has been digitised by a local history group.

It sheds fascinating light on the contest, which for decades was the highlight of the summer in the Durham coalfield and was practically as big as the Durham Miners’ Gala, but was not without controversy.

Scenes from the Miss Crimdon 1960 video as the girls parade, Manny Shinwell announces the winner and Sally Fleetham wears her sash

Sally, “in a lemon cotton dress”, is shown being presented with her £15 prize and her winners’ silken sash by the Easington MP Manny Shinwell, who had flown north especially for the great occasion.

In his address, Mr Shinwell says that Easington Rural District Council first organised the pageant in 1937 to promote the holiday lido it had developed in a picturesque dene leading onto the beach.

The Labour-run council organised 13 heats in towns and villages across its area. These were held in working men’s clubs and welfare halls, and local councillors and dignitaries selected their local lovely, from entrants as young as 13. She would then go forward to bear the area’s name on a sash across her body at Crimdon. On the video, Miss Haswell, Miss Peterlee, Miss Murton, Miss Hutton Henry, Miss Blackhall and Miss Heselden can be seen parading “in gay summery dresses” with Miss Wheatley Hill in front of the judges and the huge crowd.

In some years, there were 80,000 or more people present for the occasion, which was traditionally held on the August bank holiday.

Sally Fleetham, Miss Wheatley Hill, who won the 1960 Miss Crimdon title with Manny Shinwell and his wife, Dinah, and the other winners: second was Kathleen Martindale, the 18-year-old Miss Wingate, and third was 15-year-old Miss Easington Colliery Margaret Jones

Mr Shinwell looms large in the video and in the history of this remarkable event. A pugnacious Glaswegian who once punched a Conservative MP in the House of Commons and perforated his eardrum, he was first elected to represent east Durham in 1935. He was the Minister for Fuel and Power in the post-war government and oversaw the nationalisation of the mining industry in 1947, and he remained Easington’s MP until 1970.

In his address in 1960, he mentions that the pageant, and the council-run lido, had had its opponents even in the 1930s.

The crowded Crimdon holiday park in 1938

“At that time, there was a great deal of criticism,” he told the crowd, “but you have the answer to such criticism here today in this great and glorious concourse of ordinary men and woman and their families, who have come to enjoy themselves at one of the finest beauty spots in the United Kingdom.”

He said the event was a “wonderful workers’ demonstration with nothing aristocratic about it. Here, in my constituency and the surrounding area, we have the finest beauties in any part of the country.”

The finalists with Miss Crimdon 1969 in the foreground

In 1997, though, a strange political controversy blew up when the Earl of Carlisle, who had stood unsuccessfully for the SDP/Liberal Alliance in Easington in 1987, alleged in a speech about electoral reform in the House of Lords that Mr Shinwell “fixed the contest and chose the daughters, wives or girlfriends of Labour councillors”.

The earl said that therefore most of the winners were "rather ugly''.

There was outrage among the coalfield communities which defended the honour of decades of their womenfolk. The earl then apologised, said his light-hearted remarks had been taken out of context. He invited all former Miss Crimdons to join him for strawberries and cream on the terrace at the Houses of Parliament, and added: "I certainly didn't mean to offend any of the ladies involved. The two I have seen pictures of certainly looked very pretty.''

A mid 1960s Miss Crimdon celebrates after winning her sash

By the time of this episode, Miss Crimdon was no more. As the 1980s wore on, the number of girls putting themselves forward dwindled, and in 1989, Miss Peterlee was cancelled when only three girls put their names forward.

However, the 1990 contest went ahead with The Northern Echo reporting that “the beauties bring out the crowds” as Miss Peterlee took the Miss Crimdon title with Miss Seaham in second and Miss Station Town in third.

But in 1991, the Echo reported that Easington council was getting cold feet. “The contest has 14 heats before the final,” said the Echo, “and last year, six heats had three or less competitors and the Blackhall heat attracted just one.”

There is no record in the Echo archive of a 1991 Miss Crimdon being crowned so it seems that the pageant was allowed to fade into history.

That makes the 1960 film, which is on the Wheatley Hill History Group’s new YouTube channel, so valuable.

Tears of joy for Miss Crimdon 1966

The channel has been created following the group receiving a grant from the Co-op Community Fund which has allowed it to digitise 16 of the films it has collected over the years. These include clips of the area’s mining heritage and also its day-to-day life, like Royal British Legion meeting from 1995, when the raffle is absolutely the most important part of the proceedings.

But the 1960 video is a remarkable piece of social history. Today the concept of beauty parades seems very dated, but the film shows how back then there was great pride and even prestige in being crowned Miss Crimdon.

There is a link to the channel from the group’s website, wheatley-hill.org.uk

READ MORE: SO PROUD OF OUR BEAUTIFUL MISS CRIMDON 1960